Steve’s recent post on Singaporean resilience was picked up by Fred, Sean, and myself, and Steve kindly responded to a criticism that Singapore isn’t resilient because it is a signal point of failure

Unfortunately for Singapore, it is a classic example of a single point of failure. I respect Steve D. & Enterra, but in the proliferated 21st Century, resilient assets must be distributed assets. Singapore, by definition, isnâ€™t.

I must admit that Zimmerman’s logic escapes me. My entire point was that Singapore is trying to expand into more economic sectors (beyond electronics and finance) in order to avoid setting itself up for “single point” failure.

Singapore is a single point of failure because Singapore is a city-state, a significant fraction of which could be obliterated by a terrorist nuclear bomb. This may be best understood visually:

100 kilotons over Singapore

Singapore is not unique in this — all high-density cities are so vulnerable — but there is a physical dimension to resiliency which needs to be considered, too.